ST. LOUIS - St. Louis City SC is set to return to the CITYPARK pitch Sunday Aug. 20 against Austin FC.
For City S.C. they will look to rebound from a miserable League Cup where they were unable to win a single match during the group stage, including getting demolished by Liga MX side Club America 4-0 at the CITYPARK.
City SC Head Coach Bradley Carnell joined Total Information A.M. to discuss the team's last three weeks and the team's break.
Carnell says that a growing emphasis he and his staff has been working on has been trying to get some more goals from the run of play.
Despite being one of MLS's highest scoring offenses, the club's attack was stale during during the month of July, only scoring seven goals all month, including only five goals in their last five matches in all competition.
"That's been something of an Achilles heel for us over the last three, four games," Carnell said, "We haven't been able to score from the run of play."
St. Louis City S.C. was able to work on it during the team's scrimmage with Atlanta United, which resulted in a 3-3 draw.
Carnell said the team wanted to take the scrimmage seriously even though it was just a friendly.
"A scrimmage is never really a scrimmage," Carnell said, "If you just take it as occupational therapy, I don't think we'll get the benefit out of that. We wanted to take it really seriously to show the players and everyone that we have big expectations on our shoulders internally, and we want to do the best we can."
Carnell said that they could've done a scrimmage with a local college like Maryville, but they wanted to get challenged before the restart.
The team will restart on Sunday against Austin F.C. are nearly three weeks off from competitive play.
While most fans would assume it was long break for the team, Carnell said the team still was active on the practice pitch during the break.
"I think we gave the players around five to six days off, but everyone still had programs to do," said Carnell.
City S.C. will also have a new face on the training grounds with the club recently picking up LB Anthony Markanich from the Colorado Rapids on Aug. 1.
Carnell says he was impressed with Markanich during the team's scrimmage with Markanich picking up 70 minutes of play.
"He has a good engine, good technical ability," Said Carnell, "He serve's a good cross, and he seems like a good person."